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Forum:Video policy on MA?
To continue from my prior discussion, I'm bring up some of the things we discussed as relates to video in a bit more detail. Overview Over the last few years, Memory Alpha has come close to a "no videos" policy on the site. This has to do with a number of factors including (but not limited to): * Copyright issues * Need and contextual relation * Fan fiction * Ability of any user to add (potential for hidden vandalism) While visiting the Wikia offices and discussing these issues with them, they presented us with a few possibilities that could mitigate some of these problems (although, I leave that final decision up to the community as to whether that's actually the case). Two of the major points that they offered up were: * Only administrators can add video * All videos would be required to be sourced from their video library The first point has its obvious merits and limits any possible vandalism. The second would ensure that all videos we use are copyrighted appropriately (as Wikia actually licenses their use from the copyright holders). Historically, we have only really "allowed" trailers and teasers produced for publicity, and this is a stance that I would like to see continue as we move forward. While discussing this with Wikia, we noted that the only videos we currently had on the site included teasers and trailers, but that we would also potentially be interested in the "next time on..." bumpers at the end of episodes. They asked why we were not showing interested in episodes or clips thereof, and the two main issues I brought up were "geo-locking" and a desire to not take portions of episodes out of context, and thus push people toward viewing the episodes/films in other legal venues (ie, blu-rays or DVDs, startrek.com, etc). They did bring up the possibility of using short clips (at our discretion, and under our control) to illustrate articles where we use 2-3 images to display something (such as the Kolvoord Starburst). The Doctor Who wiki has a very detailed video policy, some of which might be relevant here, some of which isn't, but some of the basic points therein could be of use when designing our video policy if we choose to follow that route. What I'd like to suggest is that we take a serious look at the options that they've presented us and consider such an implementation, with a very carefully worded video policy, obviously. Proposal My suggested (very high level) proposal is as follows: # All videos must be sourced from Wikia's video library, # Videos may only be added by admins to Memory Alpha, # There shall continue to be no "related videos" module in the siderail, # Videos shall only be used in appropriate contexts and shall be embedded in the articles in much the same manner as we currently use images, # Memory Alpha shall not use geo-locked videos (over half of our readership is based outside of the continental US), # In terms of the specific content, anything beyond publicity material (commercials, teasers, trailers) will be discussed and agreed upon before being put into use on Memory Alpha. Discussion As the proposer, I'm in favour (obviously) of all six points I raised. -- sulfur (talk) 15:29, June 26, 2013 (UTC) *I support the above proposal, as I think it strikes a good balance- though I am open to changes to the proposal. 31dot (talk) 16:03, June 26, 2013 (UTC) :conflict: :While I still have some issues with wikia's somewhat cavalier interpretation of fair use, which I will not quote here due to the NDA, I do think our version of the file description page would need all the info not located here, for example, and maybe we should also just add that info directly to the video library as well. Since only admins would be adding videos, and I don't think we're talking about more than a handful of videos currently, this wouldn't be too much of a hassle, and would be much easier to do going forward than doing it later after the fact (this also ties into another point below). :The article I was thinking of in San Francisco but couldn't remember while we were there is Selected DNA exchange, which is the perfect testbed for replacing six images with roughly 5 seconds of video. That said, I would like to see the clip we would use first before agreeing we should, and this really would be a case by case basis. :As for writing a policy, I could see a draft based on parts of the current image policy as well as what the TDC uses. That said, I have an issue with how some of these are named. Wikia seems to be using the first part of a tile as a category (or categories), and while that's not a deal breaker, it does tie into some of the things we talked about out west involving how they handle and organize videos. If these we're to be renamed, how would that effect us, or MB even? *While I'm on board with this overall, I think all of this would need to be "tested" first, as I don't know of any wiki that's currently working this way, and I would rather be agreeing to a working system than a hypothetical one. - 16:22, June 26, 2013 (UTC) ::I'm not bound by any NDA, so I guess I'm free to state the obvious: the Fair Use claim while using copyrighted material without permission is based, among other things, on "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". A clip, even if only some seconds long (but with sound), is a much more substantial part of the whole work than any single image, or small set of images, would be. Thus, a Fair Use claim wouldn't hold up as well as it currently does. In the past, concerns such as these have been brushed away rather easily, basically stating something along the lines of "we'll deal with any infringement claim when it comes up" - perhaps this still is Wikia's stance on Fair Use. If that is the case, it should be kept in mind that, after all is said and done, it's still the original uploader of copyrighted content that will have to answer that, not Wikia as "just" the host. ::Based on the explanation above, the situation here might be different, insofar as Wikia is actually licensing (getting permission to use) the clips that are supposed to be displayed on Memory Alpha. In that case, a whole different can of gagh is the question whether that might make Wikia a contributor to MA - and what that means regarding the "NC" part of our CC license. ::Last but definitely not least is the fact that videos are much less accessible than images, both from a technical standpoint (not every system/browser that can display images can display video), and regarding the visually impaired. We shouldn't replace important parts of "accessible content" with something that is inaccessible to some. ::So, in combination, I'm hesitant about agreeing with this proposal. I don't see much need to integrate video - and if it happens, it should at least be restricted to content that can not be presented in another form (so: trailers, yes; replacing image sets, no). -- Cid Highwind (talk) 16:58, June 26, 2013 (UTC) ::An afterthought: can we be sure that this won't be another "attack vector" for advertising in content space? -- Cid Highwind (talk) 17:00, June 26, 2013 (UTC) ::And another one, after having read the Doctor Who Wiki video policy. Using only videos uploaded to YouTube by the copyright holder would definitely alleviate some of the issues, but: which one is the correct channel, how many Trek videos are available there at the moment, and how would requesting new video clips work? (I guess it wouldn't really work well at all.) -- Cid Highwind (talk) 17:20, June 26, 2013 (UTC) :It's my understanding that we can use content provided through wikia so long as we add it to the database. Wikia in this case would be be the middleman only, much like a news outlet would be between us and a Paramount spokesman, or even wikia and J.J. Abrams. As for ads, the Youtube videos already have some sometimes, and I would hope wikia is making enough on the partnerships with their content providers that any ads added wouldn't be more than what Youtube already has, if ad were added at all (and it wouldn't surprise me if they were). That said, I would have no problem with videos being removed, assuming they are added in the first place, if they become ad boxes first, videos second. - 17:32, June 26, 2013 (UTC) Cid: To address a couple of your concerns (note: I'm not bound by an NDA on the video side of things at all): * The clips/videos/etc we would use would only be ones licensed for use. At that point, fair use no longer applies, and it becomes a "copyright, license to use given to MA via Wikia" (essentially). So, on that side of things, we avoid any fair use worries. That also means that we would not be using YouTube videos at all (and thus would not have to worry about which are legal and which aren't). * To my limited understanding of the law as surrounds the CC-by- licenses, Wikia would simply be licensing these videos for use on any/all wikis that fall under their purview (or rather "wikias" as they want to start calling them). Because we can pick and choose which to use (if any) it shouldn't be much of an issue -- as things stand, any images we use do not fall under the license, the license applies to the text content of the site. * I have no desire to replace content with videos. I am interested in the idea of helping expand the content with video. For the two example pages listed above (one from me, one from Archduk3), the solution might be some method of showing a video and the image set, possibly using a CSS/JS hide/show thing similar to the current appearances setup we have. * In terms of ads? I'm with everyone else. I don't want to see that used as another space for ads. If that happens, I'm more than happy to lead the charge to reverse our video policy :) Hopefully that addresses the issues that arose, if not, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. -- sulfur (talk) 18:04, June 26, 2013 (UTC) :::As far as accessibility goes, might Wikia consider a flag in the user preferences page to enable/disable video on a per-user basis? And if video is disabled, maybe we could display an image set instead? Just tossing out ideas... -- Renegade54 (talk) 21:13, June 26, 2013 (UTC) ::Regarding rights clearing, wouldn't that become a very complicated process? If the idea is that we should be able to use "random" clips from any of the shows (example: the "DNA exchange" mentioned above), then either Wikia would need to have a blanket license, probably restricted to a maximum length - or we would need to upload clips to a non-public location, wait for Wikia to get a license, and only then begin to use it. ::If we go the route of having image sets and optionally replace that with a video, then it would need to be a central, integrated solution from Wikia, not one we create ourselves using user CSS and JS. A main reason for that is mobile usage, which uses different CSS/JS, and apparently an app in the future. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 22:09, June 26, 2013 (UTC) ::I'm also not convinced that simply segregating all non-admin contributors from this feature really is the wiki way to handle this. A better approach would be to have a new user right "Video upload" for which all long-time contributors could be auto-approved (after X months or Y edits), and which could additionally be assigned or removed by admins/bureaucrats in case of misuse, following some policy. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 22:16, June 26, 2013 (UTC) :::Due to potential copyright issues I would say it's best to leave the responsiblity of adding videos to admins. StalwartUK 03:07, June 27, 2013 (UTC)